Restore Pointe Stuck ?

[Night_Skies]

Hi All,
I need some help and suggestions ...

My computer decided to say it was time for a restore to an eailer time( I don't know why that
decided to just pop up like that on it's own) and I did the restore thinking that something was
wrong with the computer ( I can't believe I didn't do this , I know better)
But I hadn't done a back up on the computer yet and when the restore pointe got stuck and shut
down the computer,

Everything was lost in my folders and sub folders !!!!!!!!!

Does anyone know of a GOOD Restore or Undelete program that I can use to restore my
important files and photos that I can't seem to get back?????
I bought one on line and it did NOTHING !!!

So I then did a free trial one and it brought up a bunch of stuff , but wouldn't let me recover
any of the stuff that was in there , it only gave a preview , which was most of what I needed,
And it was very expensive. About &500.00

I also know that the more I use this computer the better the chance I have of not
being able to recover somethings as they may be over wriiten .

Does anyone have any suggestions that may be able to help me ????

This is the only computer I have.
Thank You,
Night_skies

[Midknyte]

I've never seen Windows popup about doing a restore by itself. Regardless, a system restore should not have affected your data.

Do you have antivirus and antispyware apps installed? Are you having any other issues besides the missing data?

What was this $500 product you used?

Recuva is free.
http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Yes, you need another drive for the recovered files. You don't want to overwrite anything.

[Night_Skies]

Hi Midknyte,

I should rephrase that about the system restore , I installed an app and my virus scanner
said that it was questionable, which avast can sometimes be wrong, so to be on the safe side
I uninstalled the app in question and noticed a white flag at the bottom of my computer that
wasn't there before.
It said I need to do a back up.

Being New to Windows 7, I confused it with a system restore

But the system restore just got stuck mid way and shut down and then the message on the
screen said that System Restore did not complete successfully. Your computer's system files and settings were not changed...
And even stranger yet it was restored to the date I wanted it to be
And it deleted all of my programs and folders etc.

I dug a bit and it says it's stuck in system volume ?

Yes I have antivirus and antispyware apps installed.

Yes I am having other problem, such as with images not showing up on a web pages
and the smiley icons below sometimes they show and sometimes they don't.
I have to hit the refresh button quite often to get the image to show ..
Also my connection is sometimes at a crawl , I tested it and it shows an very
good connection speed.

The program I used as a trial was pretty good it is called EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
easeus.com It ranges in price from 69.95 to $ 499.00
To recover you have to pay.

I will run the scan you suggested and repost.

Thank You,
Night_skies

[falcon2000]

I have a suspicion that your data are not gone. Sounds like you have got some malware that is hiding the data or otherwise making them inaccessible. How much disk space is it showing and does it make sense?

If I were you, before I do anything else, I would hook up the drive to another computer to see if I can find the data there this way.

[falcon2000]

Have you tried the un-hiding hidden folders and files in Folder Options?

[Night_Skies]

Hi All,
First off Thanks Midknnyte,
I ran the scan you suggested and it was a good scanner for free.
It brought up a bit of stuff but it showed most of my drive was over written or damaged .

falcon2000 - Also Thank You ,
I did try the un-hiding the folder option and nothing comes up ..
I also checked for a Virus but avast says its ok , but that may be wrong because we know
avast can give false reports from time to time.
I checked my disk space and it is nearly empty, which it was 1/2 full before ?
I restarted the computer and now it shows a little more than 1/2 full ?????

My Cd Rom is now running really slow and it won't copy or burn anything,
It takes forever to get the computer to bring up a webpage and when it does , it then
shuts down , small errors that I can fix, but I am thinking the hard drive is going or the processer maybe (just a thought)
and I don't know anything about how to fix that ...
I dont know how to tell if it is one or both of the 2.

Can you suggest a good virus scanner and malware scanner ?

Thanks,
Night_skies

[falcon2000]

Use the hard drive manufacturer's software to test the hard drive.

[jdc2000]

Use a good working computer to create a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD from Midknyte's link. That has most hard drive manufacturer's diagnostics on it. Bot the problem computer from the Ultimate Boot CD and run the tests for your hard drive. You can use SeaTools (Seagate) if you don't see diagnostics for your drive.

[Night_Skies]

Hi All,
Thank You to all who helped me with the stuck restore pointe.

I had to buy a new hard drive as it was corrupt.
I had to have it installed because I didn't do a back up or
have the operating system disk.

I am sorry that it took so long to post back.
I couldn't get on the computer until today because of the time
it took to fix my computer and get it back .
I also was under the weather with that
wonderful winter upper respiratory infection.

I asked for the old hard drive back because I wanted to get as much stuff off of it as possible .
That was an extra charge that I didn't have to dish out
Any suggestions ?

Thanks again for your time and patience.
Night_skies

[Midknyte]

You could slave the drive (install as a secondary) into your system. And then you could try to pull data from the old drive onto the new drive.

What do you mean "corrupt"? Did the technician run diagnostics on the drive? If the drive is physically bad, then it'll be hard to get data off of it.

[Night_Skies]

Midknyte,
I actually don't know what the technician did , it is a small
shop by our house, an older gentleman.
He said he could see alot of my photos where damaged
He asked me if the photos were important and I told him yes
they were Family members that have passed on that I can't get back.
I also told him at the time, that there were Documents from my work
on there that I would like to have back . He then proceeded to tell me
that it would cost about $400.00 to $500.00 to try and retrieve what
ever he could. I know there are corrupt photos on there , when the restore
point got stuck and shut down the computer I saw a picture of my Aunt that
had a ton of red lines thru it.
So I would guess that I can retrieve some stuff off the old one ...

I can get around the computer ok , but to slave the drive , I wouldn't
know how .

Thanks again,
Night_skies

[Midknyte]

Ok, so you don't know if the hard drive is physically defective or not. As the others mentioned, a hard drive diagnostic should have been done. If the drive is physically defective, it will be much harder to get files off of it.

There is only so much we can do from a forum. If you can't install the drive yourself, you'd need to get someone to install the hard drive into your system as a secondary AKA slave drive. After that, you can boot into Windows and browse the "bad" drive.

Unfortunately, this is a hard way to learn about making backups. You should always have at least 2 copies of a file, preferably with a copy offsite.

[falcon2000]

I can get around the computer ok , but to slave the drive , I wouldn't
know how .

Get one of these hard drive docks: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...ard+drive+dock so you don't have to open up the computer and slave the drive. To get the right one you need to know what type of hard drive you have (SATA or IDE) and what type of connections (USB or eSATA) you have on the computer.

[Night_Skies]

Hi All,
Thank you:
Midknyte / falcon2000 / jdc2000 for all your help !!
Midknyte I was able to slave my drive, it took me a bit to read how to do it, and it was easier
to do then I thought ,
I also bought the docking station that falcon2000 suggested ( It is a Good
thing to have on hand ).
jdc2000 Thanks for the link ( I just used it for an old computer I had that I had been tinkering around with for a while, it worked on that old beast...

Lesson learned , I back up Everything Now .
Can't have that happen again...

Thanks again VDR members .....

Sorry this is being posted so late , as I was laid up sick for close to 2 months.

Thanks Again,
Night_skies